The beginnings of the English romantic movement; a study in eighteenth century literature

Front matter

CORNELX - UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 189I BY

HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE

Preface

This little book gives the results of a search in English literature from 1700 to 1765, for the beginnings of the English Romantic movement. The minor poetry from 1725 to 1765, although desperately dull reading, has satisfactorily rewarded my search. I have reached no startling conclusions, but there is some matter in the book that may fairly be called new ; and a number of points suggested by previous study have been more fully developed. The Spenserian Revival is treated with some approach to thoroughness, and my list of imitations I believe to be much longer than any other ever printed. In the discussion of Ballad Literature and in the chapter on Gray I have also gone" carefully into details.

So far as I am aware no book has ever been written on the history of English Romanticism, so that the matter given here is the result of first-hand study. Every statement of fact and every critical opinion, unless the contrary is distinctly stated, are based on references to the original sources, so far as these have been accessible. The prose and poetry of the period I have read very largely in first and early editions. An original edition with the author's first preface is often of the greatest value to the student of a literary development.

The utmost care has been taken to secure accuracy in dates. In this kind of work dates are exceedingly important, and different histories, encylopaedias and dictionaries vary so widely from each other, that accuracy is not always easy. Every doubtful date has here been followed up carefully, and the date finally given is based on the best evidences and authorities.

vi PREFACE.

In this book I have tried to establish two things. First, that the spirit of Romanticism has never been wholly extinct in English literature. Second, that between the years 1725 and 1765 the Romantic movement was a real, if quiet force, and that in these forty years may be found the seeds which sprang to full maturity in Scott and Byron, and in all the subsequent Romantic literature of the nineteenth century.

My thanks are due to the officials of the Boston Public Library, and to the librarians of Harvard and Yale Universities, who have always shown me the utmost courtesy. I cannot sufficiently express my obligations to Professor H. A. Beers of Yale, and to Professor Barrett Wendell of Harvard. It was at the suggestion of the former that I first entered upon this line of study, and the generous loan of his own manuscript notes on the period has been an invaluable help. It was Professor Wendell who first suggested the idea of printing my results, a thought that had not previously occurred to me. He also read all of the first draft of my manuscript and made many useful suggestions. My thanks are due to Professor John M. Manly of Brown, who read and annotated my manuscript, and to Professor George Lyman Kittredge of Harvard, who assisted me materially in countless places with his wide learning and unfailing kindness. Mr. Thomas Sergeant Perry of Boston, and Professor T. R. Lounsbury, of Yale, also read extracts and helped me by many fruitful hints, and by much friendly counsel ; and I should also like to express in common with so many other students my appreciation of the inspiration and general stimulus I have received from the kind words of Professor F. J. Child. No sincere student ever came into close contact with this Teacher without becoming both a better scholar and a better man.

Any corrections of errors, or suggestions, will be gratefully received and promptly acknowledged.

W. L. P.

Yale University, 10 March, 1893.

Introduction

WHAT IS ROMANTICISM?

Any attempt to make a definition of Romanticism that will be at once specific and adequate is sure to result in failure. It is not simply that the word " Romantic " has both a popular and a critical sense, each of which differs widely from the other ; but that the word is used critically in very different ways. For example, we say that Scott's couplets are Classic, as distinguished from those of Keats, which are Romantic ; but, speaking critically, it will never do to say that Scott was a Classic poet, because he certainly stands as one of the most prominent figures in English Romanticism.

Again, we call Byron a Romantic poet, because his poetry expresses that sentimental melancholy and vague aspiration which characterize the Romantic mood ; but if we take Romanticism to be what Heine says it is — the revival of the life and thought of the Middle Ages — we certainly cannot class Byron as a Romantic poet.

The word Romanticism is also often applied not to subject, but to method. Any poet, like Victor Hugo for example, who rebels against and ignores the rules of the Classicists, is thereby a Romantic poet. In this sense Wordsworth might be, and in fact is, called a Romanticist, although he differs completely from Scott on the one hand, and fronj Byron on the other. When three poets so utterly unlike as Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth are each and all ranked by various critics as belonging to the Romantic school of English literature, it is easy to see that the term must be used in widely different senses.

I have seen many people who thought they could define Romanticism off-hand ; but I have never seen one who could actually do it when brought to the test. It may be profitable to rehearse a few of the definitions given by critics and men of letters, in order to show the difficulty of getting at something that will satisfy everybody. Heine says, "Was war aber die romantische Schule in Deutschland? Sie war nichts anders als die Wiedererweckung der Poesie des Mittelalters, wie sie sich in dessen Liedern, Bild- und Bauwerken, in Kunst und Leben, manifestiert hatte. Die Poesie in alien diesen Gedichten des Mittelalters tragt einen bestimmten Charakter, wodurch sie sich von der Poesie der Griechen und Romer unterscheidet. In Betreff dieses Unterschieds nennen wir erstere die romantische und letztere die klassische Poesie." ^ Then Heine goes on to say that in antique art the plastic figures are identical with the thing represented, with the idea which the artist seeks to embody and communicate, whereas in romantic art all descriptions, as, for example, the wanderings of a knight, have always an allegorical significance. Classic art portrays the finite, Romantic art the infinite. '

Madame de Stael follows much the same idea. She says, " Le nom de romantique a €\,i introduit nouvellement en Allemagne, pour designer la podsie . . . qui est nde de la chevalerie et du christianisme. . . . On prend quelquefois le mot classique comme synonyme de perfection. Je m'en sers ici dans une autre acception, en considdrant la poesie classique comme celle des anciens et la podsie romantique comme celle qui tient de quelque manifere aux traditions chevaleresques." She also remarks on " I'imitation de Tune et I'inspiration de I'autre." ^

These two definitions evidently refer mainly to the subject-matter — the kind of topics handled by Romantic writers. Other definitions refer more to the subjective side — to the Romantic mood. Mr. Pater says, "The essential classical

1 Die Romantische Schule (Cotta edition), page 158.

INTRODUCTION. 3

element is that quality of order in beauty. ... It is the addition of strangeness to beauty ttiat constitutes the Romantic character in art. . . . Jt is the addition of curiosi t^jto _the desir e_^ beauty that const it utes the romantic temper. . . . The e.s &e»tial_ . elements. tli f", rX theRomantic spirit are _cu iipsitv and the lo ve of beauty j) ^ and-iLi£-as_ the acci dental effects "of these" Quajities-ealy-that-it--&eeks th e middle age."/ ^

Again, Dr. F. H. Hedge declares that the Romantic feeling has its origin in wonder and mystery. " It is the sense of something hidden, of imperfect revelation. . . . The peculiarity of the classic style is reserve, self-suppression of the writer. . . . The Romantic is self-reflecting. ... To the Greeks the world was a fact, to us it is a problem. . . . Byron is simply and wholly Romantic, with no tincture of classicism in his nature or works." ^ Dr. Hedge gave the essence of Romanticism as Aspiration. Prof. Boyesen writes, " Romanticism is seally on one side retrogressive, as it seeks to bring back the past, and on the other hand, progressive, as it seeks to break up the traditional order of things. . . . The conventional machinery of Romantic fiction ; night, moonlight, dreams . . . Romantic poetry invariably deals with longing, . . . not a definite desire, but a dim, mysterious aspiration." *

Now for some definitions referring neither to mood nor to subject matter, but to method. Mr. Saintsbury lays down this dictum. " The terms classic and romantic apply to treatment not to subject, and the difference is that the treatment is classic when the idea is represented as directly and with as exact an adaptation of form as possible, while it is romantic when the idea is left to the reader's faculty of divination assisted only by suggestion and symbol." ^ Victor Hugo, in the preface to Hernani (1830) said, "Le Romantisme, tant de fois mal d^fini, n'est . . . que le libdralisme en litterature." Toreinx, in his

1 Macmillaris Magazine, Vol. XXXV.

2 Atlantic Monthly, Vol. LVII.

3 Novalis and the Blue Flower, Atlantic Monthly, Dec, 1875.

4 A Short History of French Literature, page 582.

Histoire du Romantisme en France, says, " Les Romantiques sont ceux qui dans les arts veulent autre chose que ce qui est." M. Brunetifere, in an exceedingly interesting article called Classiques et Romantiques^ says, " Le romantisme n'est pas n'importe quelle revolution, mais une revolution pour remettre en honneur tout ce que le classicisme avait, sinon dogmatiquement condamn^, du moins effectivement rejetd. ... lis sont precisement aux deux poles de I'histoire de notre littdrature nationale." Classicism he calls "la rdgularitd du bon sens — la perfection dans la mesure," and Romanticism " le d^sordre de I'imagination — la fougue dans I'incorrection."

No one ever showed better the hopelessness of finding a satisfactory definition of Romanticism than Alfred de Musset, in his brilliant Lettres de Diipids et Cotonet (1836). This correspondence is a charming burlesque. The two letter-writers try definition after definition, only to find that something extremely important has been left out, or that the definition is self-contradictory, ot that it is ridiculously meaningless. They finally conclude that Romanticism consists in employing an abundance of glowing adjectives ; which, though meant to be laughable, is as helpful a definition as many that have been seriously urged.^

But, though all the above definitions of Romanticism make a confusing variety of opinions, we cannot help seeing that there is something in them common to all. Romantic literature will generally be found to show three qualities : Subjectivity, Love of the Picturesque, and a Reactionary Spirit. By the first quality I mean that the aspiration and vague longing of the writer will be manifest in his literary production; by the second, that element of Strangeness added to beauty, which Mr. Pater declares is fundamental ; this may appear mildly, as where the writer is fond of ivy-mantled towers and moonlit

2 Thfephile Gautier's brilliant Histoire du Romantisme is full of interest ; and Mr. Courthope's last chapter in his Life of Pofe has much that is pertinent and suggestive.

INTRODUCTION. S

water, or may turn into a passion for the unnatural and the horrible, as in tales of ghosts and of deeds of blood. And by the third is meant that the Romantic movement in any country will always be reactionary to what has immediately preceded ; it may be gently and unconsciously reactionary, as in England, or proudly and fiercely rebellious, as in France.

Taking these three elements. Subjectivity, Picturesqueness, and Reaction, it is easy to see why the Romantic movement in England, in Germany, and in France, went for its inspiration back to the Middle Ages. Romanticism is certainly wider in connotation than Mediaevalism ; and in the discussion of English Romanticism attempted in this book, the definitions of Heine and Madame de Stael would have to be supplemented and amplified to be adequate. But in the Middle Age lay just the material for which the Romantic spirit yearned. Its religious, military and social life and all forms of mediaeval art can hardly be better characterized than by the word Picturesque; and souls weary of form and finish, of " dead perfection," of "faultily faultless" monotony, naturally sought the opposite of all this in the literature and thought of the Middle Ages. And as the Classical Augustans had neglected this period above all others, and treated it with contempt, the Reactionists, began with an attempt to revivify and brighten this forgotten Mediaeval life.

The most striking difference between the Romantic movement in France and in England is that in the former country the movement was conscious, while in the latter it was only instinctive. French Romanticism had a definite program, backed almost from the start by a brilliant critical school, headed by one supreme creative genius. English Romanticism was a totally different thing. Its beginnings are so faint and so far below the surface that many writers seem to believe that English Romanticism began with the nineteenth century, and that in the " age of prose and reason " there was no such thing as a Romantic movement at all. It is very true that the general character of eighteenth century literature was formal, critical, and prosaic ; but it is also true that beneath this outward crust the fire of Romanticism was glowing. The volcanic eruption of genius which marked the first years of the present century can be explained only by the examination of previous conditions. These conditions I have endeavored to explain with some fullness and clearness ; and the result ought to prove that the beginnings of the English Romantic movement should date back to the first quarter of the eighteenth century ; and that during the second quarter, and especially during the fifth decade, the strength of the movement was much greater than seems to have been commonly supposed.

CHAPTER I. PRINCIPAL LITERARY CHARACTERjeXICS OF THE AUGUSTAN AGE

The literary characteristics of the so-called Classical or Augustan age of English literature are so well known, that I shall here discuss them only in a cursory manner. In tracing the early growth of the Romantic reaction, it is necessary to begin with a review of the prominent qualities of the Classical period; this may best be don^ by enumerating certain striking characteristics, and establishing these by examples taken directly from the literature of the time. We may proceed in the following order :

I. THE VIEW OF LIFE. — THE ATTITUDE TOWARD RE- LIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS.

As in every age, literature is simply the crystallization of tendencies of thought, so the Queen Anne school of English literature expressed the popular dominating ideas about the problems of life. Classicism was not merely a literary fashion, arbitrarily set by the leaders of taste; it had its roots deep in the prevailing religious and philosophical thought. The Augustan view of life was almost wholly phenomenal. A man like Addison carried his whiggism into everything. He resolutely closed his senses to feelings of Mystery and Awe; the idea of unseen and eternal realities, so constantly present to the Puritan mind, seems to have had no significance for men of his stamp. Respectability — decent Conformity — these were the watchwords of the Augustans. The view of life was equally unlike that of the Renaissance and of Puritanism.

In the former, boundless imagination, unspeakable aspiration, overflowing enthusiasm predominated; in the latter the vivid realization of the supersensual world, a religious creed full of the symbolism of Hebrew poetry, and a gloom that was as quickening to poetical and religious imagination as it was mortifying to earthly happiness. Now if there was anjrthing the Augustans hated, it was Enthusiasm; they were simply bored by it, as the man of the world is bored by the naive raptures of the unsophisticated. Those who naturally lacked enthusiasm abhorred the feeling; those who had it, cautiously and deliberately checked its expression as something childish and plebeian. On the religious side of popular belief. Mystery was hated and Respectability exalted. This was owing partly to a feaction against Puritanism, and partly to a skeptical indifference generated by the constant sectarian controversies of the seventeenth century. It was not simply fanaticism and intense religious zeal that were despised; the atheists, pronounced skeptics, and deists JJsrere hated with equal fervor, as men who were trying to unsettle and disturb the reign of respectable conformity. Mr. Ingersoll would have had no more influence over the typical Augustan than Mr. Moody. The fashion of conformity is curiously shown in the greatest man of the time, Swift. The Dean was as destitute of positive religious /. belief as can well be imagined; but the age forced him toj masquerade as the most powerful champion of Christianity.

This view of life, with its absence of spontaneous enthusiasm and religious imagination, must never be forgotten in the study of the contemporary literature. I think that Pope, notwithstanding his manifest limitations, had more imagination and| enthusiasm than he generally has credit for; but he was forced' to bow to the public opinion which he himself had done so much to form. Mr. Leslie Stephen, in his admirable history of English thought, in comparing the relation between Milton, Spenser, and Pope, says that the first two could speak in a familiar symbolism; Pope had to take a. creed of the time.

" But the thought had generated no concrete imagery. . . . We have . . . diagrams, instead of pictures; a system of axioms . . . instead of a rich mythology." '

II. THE EXALTATION OF FORM OVER MATTER.

This was largely due to two causes: a reaction against the " Metaphysical" school of poetry, and the following of French models. The former has been well pointed out by Mr. Gosse in his book J^rom Shakespeare to Pope, although Mr. Gosse's conclusions and assertions here as elsewhere must be taken cum grano salts. By the beginning of the eighteenth century the reaction against the school of Donne was complete. The " surf ace^^. view of life disliked obscurity in literature as much as mystery in religion. When Addison and his friends ridicule "pointed antithesis," "forced wit," etc., they do not refer to the pointed, antithetical style of Pope, but to the far-fetched figures and subtile comparisons of Donne, Herbert, Crashaw, and the rest. Pope's view of the-Metaphyfeicals may be shown most plainly by a letter to his friend Cromwell in 17 lo, on the poet Crashaw. " All that regards design, form, fable, which is the soul of poetry; all that concerns exactness, or consent of parts, which is the body, will probably be wanting. Only pretty conceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expressions, and something of a neat cast of verse, which are properly the dress, gems, or loose ornaments of poetry, may be found in these verses. . . No man can be a true poet, who writes for diversion only. These authors should be considered as versifiers and witty men, rather than as poets." ^ This last phrase affords a particularly good example of the irony of fate, because much modern criticism would use Pope's very words in reference to himself; considering him as a versifier and witty man rather than a poet. Indeed, not a few students

1 History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. II., page 351, et seq.

2 All my references to Pope's Works are to the Elwin-Courthope edition. The present quotation is in Vol. VI., page 116.

of literature would call the author of The Flaming Heart a truer poet than the author of the Essay on Man.

French influence had also much to do with the formation of literary taste in England. Within the last few years there has been a movement among some critics which is an attempt to depreciate the influence of France on English literature — not only of the Augustan period, but also in the case of the Comic Drama of the Restoration. It is perhaps true that in the past, Gallic influence has been greatly exaggerated; but it is an element that cannot be overlooked. The Romanticists would not have rebelled against Voltaire and his countrymen so strongly, had the French influence been small; and French pressure on England was of course wholly in the direction of clearness and restraint. It reinforced the reaction against the Metaphysicals. Clearness was exalted above force, raiment above body, brilliancy above depth. The reason why Augustan literature is so transparently clear is not wholly due to the accuracy and care of the authors; it is owing largely to the subject matter. Men avoided difficult themes. Whether Pope and his friends pleased the English heart or not, they certainly suited the French. Voltaire always looked on Queen Anne literature as the high-water mark of English achievement. In 1760 he wrote in English to a British friend: "Though I do not like the monstruous irregularities of Shakespear; though I admire but some lively and masterly strokes in his performances, yet I am confident nobody in the world looks with a greater veneration on your good philosophers. You are now at the pitch of glory in regard to public affairs. But I know not wether you have preserved the reputation your island enjoyed in point of literature when Addison, Congreve, Pope, Swift were alive." '

1 1 transcribed this from the autograph letter in the British Museum.

PRINCIPAL LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. U

III. THE BELIEF THAT ALL TRUE LITERATURE CON- SISTS IN FOLLOWING NATURE.

Nature is here used, of course, in a different sense from that in which we use the word when we speak of Thomson or Wordsworth as a follower of Nature. The growth of nature-poetry was one of. the strong tendencies in the Romantic movement, as will be pointed out later. But the cry "Follow Nature " was the shibboleth of the Classicist^. What they meant was an exact reproduction of every-day life and manners, as opposed to anything wild or extravagant, or that existed only in the writer's imagination. Nature meant with them little «nore than their deity, Common-Sense. Pope's Essay on Criticism sets forth the doctrine, and as Mr. Courthope has given so admirable an analysis of the Essay, I will quote him directly. "Three main principles underlie Pope's reasoning :

1. That all sound judgment and true 'wit' is foundefi on the observation of Nature ;

2. That false 'wit' arises from a disregard' of Nature and an excessive affection for the conceptions of the mind ;

3. That the true standard for determining what is 'natural' in poetry is to be found in the best works of the ancients." ^

This gives Augustan canons of criticism in a nutshell. The contemporary ideal of poetry appears again in a letter written by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Pope in 1717.^ Speaking of the Iliad, she says Pope has passed it through his poetical crucible without its losing "aught of its original beauty." She calls Achilles " extremely absurd," and says she likes Ulysses, "who was an observer of men and manners " much better than "the hot-headed son of Peleus." This shows again what the Classicists meant by following Nature ; it was not to describe the flowers and the trees and the changes of the seasons, or to use the language of common life — it was to copy the men and

1 Pope's Works, Vol. V., page 49. 2 Ibid., Vol. IX., page 386.

12 THE ENGLISH JiOMANTIC MOVEMENT.

manners of polite society — above all things to exclude what was excessively emotional. Lady Mary's Town Eclogues were good poetry, because they followed Nature ; Joseph Warton's Enthusiast did not follow Nature, being too subjective and passionate.

IV. CLASSICISM. IN WHAT SENSE WAS THE LITERATURE OF THE FIRST QUARTER OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CLASSICAL?

Here again we have a word most- difficult to define because it is used in so many different senses. At this point it is sufficient to repeat that the Augustan literature was not really Classic ; it was pseudo-classic. As has often been said, it was "more Latin than Greek, and more French than Latin." It lacked the element that gives to Greek literature its unpar- ; alleled glory and charm - - Unconsciousness. The literature of ithe school of Pope was painfully self-conscious ; and here we must remember that there is a great difference between subjectivity and self-consciousness. Romanticism is often subjective, full of the passion and aspiration of the individual composer ; pseudo-classicism is self-conscious, in that the author is constantly observing and laboriously polishing his own workmanship. He is like an opera singer ravished not by the beauty of the aria or the dramatic passion of the scene, but by the sound of her own voice. But although the Queen Anne literature lacked the Greek unconsciousness, it was Classical in its clearness both of expression and of thought, in the perfect adaptability of ^language to sense; it was Classical in its repression of emotion, in its limited imagination ; it was Classical in its faithful obedience to critical rules, in its suppression of individuality to the mandates of established law; it was Classical in its intellectuality, and enthronement of Reason. As Professor Beers says,^ "Its sole Latin master

1 In an unpublished lecture.

was Horace," and "not Horacfe in his odes, but in his Epistles and Satires, and even then Horace as seen through the spectacles of Boileau." The -(^ugustans were conscious Classicists ; they thought it no shame to say they were imitators; their standard of excellence they clearly understood, and fidelity to the model was valued more than any spontaneity which diverged from it. We know how profoundly Pope was influenced by Walsh's words, written to him in 1706.^ "The best of the modern poets in all languages are those that have the nearest copied the ancients."

V. SUPREMACY OF TOWN OVER COUNTRY LIFE.

Dr. Johnson was simply carrying on Augustan ideas when he said that the best sight for a Scotchman's eyes was the road that led to London ; and in all his love for the city and failure to appreciate natural scenery he was entirely in accord with the preceding age. It is true that Pastoral poetry flourished like the green bay-tree ; but these compositions — with one exception to be noticed later — show even more clearly than the society satires, how utterly lacking the age was in appreciation of rural life. .The Augustan Pastorals were artificial to the last degree, and form the best evidence that their authors had no first-hand knowledge of the scenes they attempted to portray. Their Pastorals were simply hollow imitations of classic models ^— Theocritus and Vergil. The literary monarchs had no genuine love for the country; the drawing-room, the theatre and the coffee-house absorbed all their attention. In their judgment, the country was no place for a healthy mind. It should be taken as medicine, not as diet. This view appears in a letter from Pope to Mrs. J. Cowper, written in 1722. "I . . . wish you may love the town . . . these many years. It is time enough to like, or affect to like, the country, when one is out of love with all but one's self." ^

1 Pope's Works, Vol. VI., page 53. 2 JUd., Vol. IX., page 420.

VI. THE FONDNESS FOR WIT, SATIRE AND TRAVESTY

AS LITERARY SUBJECTS.

I A large proportion of all the Queen Anne and early Georgian literature is composed of work wholly or in part satirical. This is seldom a sign of health, as it indicates that original composition and spontaneousness of imagination have succumbed to the reign of the critics. The cold, hard worldliness of Augustan life found its natural expression in polished wit and satire ; and the sarcasm was not directed against Sin, but against Dullness and Unconventionality — another bad sign. i Many people wrote satires because they couldn't write anything else, not because they wished to lash any particular vice. Even Young and some of the Romanticists followed the popular taste and composed satires. The people were so deficient in natural emotion and higher imagination that the best men felt forced to yield to the prevailing demand — for the law of supply and demand affects' the market of literature in much the same way as it fixes the price of wheat. In those days people wrote satirical pamphlets for the same reason that people to-day write sonnets for magazines. Pope, writing to Walsh in 1706,^ said, "I have not attempted anything of a pastoral comedy, because I think the taste of our age will not relisH^ftoem of that sort. People seek for what they call wit, on all slBpisJs, and in all places ; not considering that nature loves truth so well, that it hardly ever admits of flourishing. Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty." Matthew Arnold's remark that Gray would have been another man in a different age, would be much nearer the truth if spoken of Pope ; for the great wit and satirist did have occasional touches of emotion and imagination, which, in another age, he would have fostered rather than repressed. The brilliant and beautiful Lady Mary Wortley Montagu represents even better than

'^Pope's Woris, Vol VI., page 51. This was the letter that called out Walsh's famous advice.